It Really IS All Fun And Games, Even If Someone Occasionally Ends Up In A Cone

I recently took an “introduction to roller derby” class (non-euphemistically called “fresh meat”), wherein I learned to somehow stay reasonably vertical whilst wearing no fewer than eight tiny wheels on my feet and engaging in a full-contact sport with some mildly terrifying athletes. It was, as you can well imagine, hilarious fun. On my first rumble-tastic day, I wore a t-shirt that shows a dog wearing a cone with the text “It’s all fun and games until someone ends up in a cone” beside it. When I posted a video on my social media, a dog trainer friend of mine pointed out how that shirt’s message was a great fit for the activity in hand. It made me laugh, but it also made me think about dogs (of course).

I loved each of my two-hour roller derby sessions. It was intensely hard work: learning a whole new skill (I had never been on roller skates before), learning a whole new set of rules, socializing with a whole new set of people…it was challenging and satisfying. There were a lot of directions I had to follow, for safety and fairness: certain equipment was de rigeur, such as a helmet, pads, and mouth guard. I also was supposed to refrain from certain types of grabbing and holding, as only other types of grabbing, holding, body checking, mowing people down with abandon, etc., etc., etc. were allowed. But despite all my protective gear; despite learning how to stop and slow myself down; despite gaining a modicum of capability in the whole “staying upright whilst being body-checked” department…I regularly fell, sometimes pretty hard, and I often came home with a few really impressive bruises.

You know where I’m going with this, right? Here’s the non-news: I wouldn’t have changed a thing.

I wouldn’t have changed a thing, because the arbiter of what’s reasonable in my life isn’t a law stating “absolutely no harm shall come to thine person”. No, nope, nay. Instead, I can weigh the risks and rewards, and chose to do the fun thing anyways.

And guess what? We can grant our dogs the very same leeway. There are many things our dogs like to do, things which carry a risk of injury. Dog play for starters…dogs can get injuries from even the most delightful-looking play, but they can also get into scraps when they play, which carry their own risks for injuries. This absolutely doesn’t mean that we can or should prevent dog-social dogs from playing, though…life, lived joyfully and fully, always carries some risks. (In fact, I’d argue that preventing dog-social dogs from playing risks much greater harm to their welfare.)

Other activities that can carry risks (but activities that we could and should consider for our dogs anyways) include stuffed food toys, dog sports and games, and hiking with our dogs, among many others—you know your dog best. For most of these activities, the risks can be mitigated, of course, and it’s our job to do so in a reasonable way. Just like I needed rules about safe play and just like I needed protective equipment (and thank goodness for those elbow pads is all I’m saying) we need to be cognizant of, and mitigate, risks. But we don’t need to reduce our dogs’ lives to small, bored, or warehoused versions of what our dogs really want: freedom, fun, and fantastic.

Cover photo: By Earl McGehee - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16476055